I was just at a client’s home whose email was “hacked”.

All of the email messages were going into the Trash folder because that’s where the hacker sent it to.

So… if you or any of your Contacts report seeing emails that look and read like this: “Hello, How are you today?” Or your email appears to be missing – be sure to log in to your email account and check your email settings.

Check to make sure there aren’t any Filters created that block or send emails sent to your email address directly into the trash folder. If you see this Filter – just delete it. Then go into your Trash folder and select all of your messages and then move your selected email messages into your Inbox.

Note – You must also close all unwanted login access. You can also find this under your email settings. Keep the current logins which will be dated and the ones that you know are yours.

Remember – to log out when you are finished reading your Internet email! And never click on any links that look sketchy.

Or you can always call or text me – and I can always help.

Learn from the experience

Take any of the following appropriate steps to protect yourself from a repeat future occurrence.

• Use strong passwords that can’t be guessed, and don’t share them with anyone.
• Don’t fall for email phishing attempts. If they ask for your password, they are bogus. Don’t share your password with anyone.
• DO NOT click on links in email that you are not 100% certain of. Many phishing attempts lead you to bogus sites that ask you to log in and then steal your password when you try.
• If you’re using WiFi hotspots, learn to use them safely.
• Keep the operating system and other software on your machine up-to-date, and run up-to-date anti-malware tools. Turn on your Computer’s internal Firewall.
• Learn to use the internet safely.
• Consider multi-factor authentication (in which simply knowing the password is not enough to gain access). More and more services are starting to support this, and for those that do (Gmail, for example), it’s worth considering.